I never thought that being a woman had anything to do with being funny
until I was in school, in fifth grade,
this guy told me: "You're not funny, you're a girl."
Oh my God, is that true?
I struggled a lot with identity as a kid.
I spent a lot of my childhood growing up between Venezuela and the States.
So for me, comedy was the way for me to breach these divides
and to be myself in a way that felt natural.
I was born in Nigeria.
I lived with my mum and she owned a store.
One day, out of nowhere
a pot of hot oil actually fell on me and my younger sister.
And that's how I endured the scars that I have today.
Physics was the thing that made me feel like there were answers
to the most interesting questions in the world.
When I was studying physics, the thing I noticed most was
when I would walk into a room and it's full of dudes.
I'm like, "Oh, another class!" I'm one of the only women.
When I was in grade 8, I lost the majority of my vision.
It was a really, really dark time in my life (no pun intended)
and I turned to YouTube.
I was getting bullied in school, picked on.
But my mom always told me that there's a purpose to why this happened to me
and I feel like now, I am fulfilling the purpose.
YouTube, and the Internet, is so different from any other platform
because authenticity is the biggest catalyst to success.
And staying authentic when you have people watching
can sometimes be stressful.
I look at the initial videos and they're over-the-top crazy, goofy
but then the audience was like "You're too goofy, we want you to be serious,"
and I listened to that
so then there are these videos where I'm very serious.
And I'm trying to be a serious science presenter.
And then it kind of mellows out to more me.
There were other aspects of my life that I noticed I wasn't fully embracing.
And that was some of the blindness, some of my blind quirks.
If I was holding something backwards, I would edit that moment out.
But then I got to a point where I was like
"You know what, it's the reality, it's the truth
"and it's OK, because it's me."
Originally, when I started making these videos
I was like, "No one's going to want to watch this
"look at me, I'm a Jewish, white Venezuelan
"there's like, 14 of us."
But something I learned is, the more specific I was to who I was
the more universal my content became
and the more people resonated with what I made.
I used to come on camera with one layer of foundation
and sort of pretend that I didn't have anything.
Honestly, I wasn't doing any harm to anybody but myself
because I was hiding myself.
You have a chance to do something that no one else can do, which is be you.
Be you, unapologetically.
I had faced a lot of negativity and meanness and hate in my life in person.
I knew going into it that I was probably gonna face that online as well.
But it was interesting to me to see what type of hate I received.
I'm a whore.
All the time.
Anything that has to do with my sexuality, even though I never even talk about sex.
Someone told me that I shouldn't be confident
because the only reason people tell me I'm beautiful
is because they feel bad for me.
They've said things like
"Why do they keep hiring these women to host these science shows?"
Where are all these women they're talking about hosting science shows?
And also, this is my channel, I did it.
Sometimes, the reason people pick on you
is because they wish that they had the strength that you have.
My nephew watches my videos religiously
and I don't want him seeing in the comments section
something that will make him feel sad for me or for himself.
So I use community management features like blocking certain words
so that I don't have to go through all of my comments
to make sure no one's calling me a bad or dirty word.
I've banned "kitchen"
like, "Go back to the kitchen, girls don't belong in science."
I'll definitely block channels if they're overly negative consistently.
I made sure to reward the positive comments and reward the people who were always there
telling me wonderful things.
I try so hard to spread love, to spread positivity
and by putting that out there it's often what I receive back.
I do think that YouTube has definitely helped a lot of us to speak out.
I am so grateful that my culture and my identity
I'm able to share with not only people like myself
but people who are completely different than me.
And changing their opinions on what they think people are like.
You don't have to be super serious.
You can be yourself, you can be goofy and you can be a woman talking about science.
Every single day, we receive comments and emails
telling me the ways in which I've helped them.
I've changed their lives.
And hearing that from them
really inspires me and fuels me to keep going.
A lot of the time, we do feel like we are the only one dealing with issues
but when we come out and share this, so many people can relate.
And you're just like, "Wow, I'm not alone."
We've got some really cool stories to tell.
So, do we need women on YouTube?
Yes, we need a lot more, come on over.
Forget about all the assumptions that you might have in your head
because it's honestly all in your head.
Just do it.
When people tell you you can't or that you won't or that you shouldn't
that there's no place for a woman,
use that as fuel and turn it into something positive
to inspire you to prove all of them wrong.
Your voice is valid. You can. You will. You should.
And I'm so excited to see you do it.